What Car? Q&A - Should I have used my supplying dealer?

Q: I bought a Nissan X-Trail and after driving it for about a week I took it to a Nissan dealership, because the steering wheel juddered under braking. All four brake discs were replaced at a cost of £540.

I sent the dealer that I bought the car from an invoice for the work and said the car was not fit for purpose. They have told me I should have initially told them of the problem (I now know I should have).

I asked if they would meet half the cost. They won't, and now I'm left £540 out of pocket, wondering whether it would be worth taking legal action.

The car now is great to drive and I did get a good deal, but it's still £540 more than I wanted to pay.
Name and address supplied

A: You've hit the nail on the head - you should have told the dealer you bought the car from about the problem in the first instance.

The Sale of Goods Act provides you with remedies if goods are not fit for purpose. You would have been able to argue quite successfully that this was the case if the brakes needed replacing so soon after purchase.

Identifying a problem within a reasonable period of time - a week seems very reasonable to us - would have given you the chance to reject the goods, demand a refund or seek another remedy from the seller.

Rejecting a whole car because of one fault is unlikely to ever be considered reasonable in the eyes of the law, so you would then have been entitled to repairs or a discount to cover the cost of these repairs.

By going to another workshop to have the fault fixed, you've not given the seller any chance to resolve the situation under the Act and, unfortunately, left yourself without any legal recourse in our opinion.